


Of Lighter Hearts

by withdrawnred



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Committed Relationship, F/M, Living Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withdrawnred/pseuds/withdrawnred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’d only been about eight months since they’d moved in together, so this was their first holiday season properly together. Sharing the same space at almost all times of day unfortunately meant agreeing on how the flat should be decorated. Things had come to a head over her beloved Christmas stocking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to the mods for putting this together! I'm really honored to be a part of this fest. And huger thanks to my beta. I would be nowhere without dormiensa over there. Never was there a more supportive friend, cheerleader, soundboard, or beta. (Seriously, this fic would be a word count of zero without her. I was still wrestling with my prompt a week before the deadline.)
> 
> Happy holidays, everyone!

“Are you ready?” Draco calls out, his eyes fixated on the mirror as he manages to get his tie into a proper Cavendish knot— _finally_. The response is muffled, much to his annoyance. What is it with today and mumbling? He turns away from the mirror and heads straight to the living room, where he thinks her mumbles came from. “Hermione?”

She’s standing in the kitchen, wiping down the counter from what looks like enough flour to bake twelve dozen cookies. Not the living room, then. She still hasn’t changed out of her dressing robe, which is covered in a thin layer of white powder. “Well, that is certainly not acceptable attire for a Parkinson dinner party.”

“I’m not going.”

His annoyance triples. “What do you mean you’re not going?”

Hermione has yet to look up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me Greg would be there?”

Draco groans. He can actually hear the betrayal in her voice. This explains how stiffly she’s holding herself. “Who told you? Pansy?”

“Why does it matter?” she asks, throwing the washrag at the sink with no small amount of force. “You know I can’t show my face with him there, Draco.”

“I thought we agreed to try to get along with each others’ friends.”

“Yes, but—"

“So this whole ‘get along with each others’ friends’ thing is one-sided? It’s fine when you’re trying to get me to be chums with Weasel and Potter—may I remind you how pleasantly I behaved at that ridiculous family dinner?—but it’s too much when I ask you to attend a small dinner party with _my_ friends?”

Hermione huffs, and he counts her lack of verbal response as one point for him.

“This is the point at which I call you a pot and me a kettle.”

“It isn’t that simple for me, and you know it. You being around the Weasleys and Harry? That’s an inconvenience. Me being around Greg? Not so much.”

Draco sighs. This again. When he’d told her about this party, he’d omitted the infinitesimal detail of Greg’s attendance. That one small omission was going to allow him to finally force Hermione to be in close proximity to Greg and get over her ridiculous guilt. Even after all this time, she still blames herself for Vince’s death, at least partially. But no matter how often Draco’s tried to convince her that it was no one’s fault but Vince’s (or better yet, those Carrow lunatics) that he died, but it makes no difference. Even Greg saw the danger in trying to wield power like Fiendfyre when you barely knew how to cast it, much less control the cursed thing. Draco had it on good authority—the best authority, actually—that Greg’s harbouring precisely zero bad feelings towards Hermione.

Damn Pansy to hell for mentioning it. She’s always ruining his plans.

“You still haven’t answered me. Why didn’t you say that Greg would be there?”

“Because I knew you would do this. Again. Refuse to go, beg me to make your excuses—”

“Yes, I think that’s a lovely idea. Tell them I had an urgent case, that I’ve got to work through the night.”

“On Christmas Eve?”

“Yes, on Christmas Eve. Things don’t stop happening just because of a stupid holiday.”

He sighs again, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. “All I want for Christmas is to not have this wall between my mate and my girlfriend. Is that so much to ask?” To have all the people he cares about together shouldn’t be so unattainable. It wasn’t even that large a group. It should take significantly less work to get four people in a single room!

“You can’t be serious. Greg hates me!”

“You are barking mad, do you know that?”

“He does! Of course he does.”

“I’m quite certain he doesn’t. You’ve set your mind to this ridiculous idea that he blames you for Vince. He doesn’t, I promise.”

“You don’t know that. Whenever he looks at me, I can feel it.”

“Oh, I do know it. The real problem is that you haven’t forgiven yourself, and you’re projecting your feelings onto him. And I’m not going to lie to my friends because you can’t see that.”

Despite the little huff that she does, Draco can see she’s discomfited. The idea of his friends knowing she chose to sit out their gatherings—rather than being forced to by the Big Bad Job—grates. Draco isn’t above revealing the real reason for her not being there, which of course she knows. She’s had enough exposure to the Slytherin in him to know that.

He can see her hesitation, weighing how much she doesn’t want to deal with her guilt over how much she doesn’t want to be impolite.

Once he’s comfortable with her level of inner turmoil, he pounces with his final piece of leverage. If this doesn’t work, he’ll be stuck with that wall between his loved ones for the rest of his life, or until Hermione pulls her head out of her guilt-ridden arse.

“I’ll make you a deal. If you come tonight and actually have a conversation with Greg, you can hang up that ratty stocking you love so much.”

Well, that was a bit backwards. Stick before carrot, but oh well.

Hermione’s gaze immediately flits over to the mass of red and white fabric sitting on the counter. It’d only been about eight months since they’d moved in together, so this was their first holiday season properly _together_. Sharing the same space at almost all times of day unfortunately meant agreeing on how the flat should be decorated. Things had come to a head over her beloved Christmas stocking.

To Hermione, that stocking was a token of her childhood, something that made her eyes soften and mouth curve in a lazy smile.

To Draco, it was an eye sore that he never wanted placed on his mantel. He’d nearly take a wizard’s oath to that effect. But if it came between having the damned thing hung up and the two halves of his life finally melding, he’d gladly take the hit. Perhaps he could figure out a charm to shield the stocking from his sight and not hers or something.

Slipping on his jacket, he continues with the rest of the bait. “It’s your decision. I’m going to grab a couple bottles of port from my dad’s cellar.”

  
  
  


Half an hour later, he's mildly surprised to be leaving with a very determined-looking Hermione Granger on his arm, Christmas cookies and port in hand.


	2. Chapter 2

_‘I’m dreaming,’_ Hermione sings lowly to herself, _‘of a white Christmas.’_ Her hands are busy, lazily preparing hot chocolate. Over the past several years, she and Draco had begun their Christmas mornings the same way: sipping mugs of her grandmother’s hot chocolate. By this point it was tradition, one that she would happily continue observing. The tradition feels so much more grounded in light of their now-shared home.

She places the hot chocolate on the coffee table, casting a couple of warming charms on the mugs, and lights the fireplace. Draco isn’t the easiest to waken. Although the promise of chocolate usually does the trick, she thinks the cold may balance out the odds. As she watches the kindle light, her eyes move upward and a warm smile lights her face. In place of the pristine velvet stocking Narcissa had gifted her—a twin of Draco’s own—is her old one. Draco was right; it's ratty as can be. But it's her ratty stocking, and she's beyond pleased to see it in its rightful place, now teeming with knick knacks from an oh-so-mysterious benefactor.

This isn’t the first time that Draco’s Slytherin conniving resulted in a smile on her face, and she doubts it’ll be the last. He’d really given her a double gift. A compromise on the stockings was in all honesty just the icing on the cake. Hermione hasn’t woken up feeling this light in years. She'd had no idea how much the guilt had been weighing her down.

This must be what it feels like to truly, completely, finally move on from the war and leave all that pain behind her. Quite the Christmas miracle.

She pads to their bed, where he’s stirring. A sleepy “Happy Christmas” greets her just as she reaches his pillow. Hermione perches next to him, happily absorbing some of his body heat and combing her fingers through his hair. Hermione observes Draco, noting how peaceful he looks. He’d given her what she hadn’t even known to ask for: a heart less burdened, lighter. Through Greg, she’d seen some of what she’d been hypocritically telling Harry for what felt like eons. To think well and fondly of those who died, but not to carry them as your burden.

Even if she hadn’t felt the relief of losing that burden, seeing the peace on Draco’s face would’ve been a perfectly sufficient Christmas gift.

“Happy Christmas, my love.” Just as the words leave her lips, she bends for a Christmas kiss. It can only be described as at peace, and she can only be described as grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt was Christmas stockings.


End file.
